


Within the Borderline

by mimesere



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen, Medical Torture, Riley doesn't save Oz from the Initiative, look it's all the bad things about a government research facility that views people as monsters, the initiative was fucked up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-24
Updated: 2014-07-24
Packaged: 2018-02-10 04:59:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2011782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mimesere/pseuds/mimesere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Making monsters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Within the Borderline

Dry cobweb smell wraps itself around rough concrete, scraping and sandy on bare skin. Bone-deep shiver, hard enough to make him gasp, hard enough to make him moan, long low sound that should climb and soar but doesn't, just catches in his throat and dies there, lost little human sound. Another shiver and humanity comes crawling back, creeping on its belly, fawning useless meat. Snarl and crouch, watch the creeping thing shed skin everywhere, filling the empty places, no room to run hunt howl just the sharp bite of a metal trap around his leg, human trap, human there hunter and trapper, kill the human, kill the meat--

Fire flickers along his arms, a swarm of God-angry stings and white heat that spread like a flood and knock him, breathless, onto his side. The wolf drowns in the human, running off to lick its wounds. Another wave of hurt -- his mind supplies the method and the reason: a chip, a piece of hardware (wetware?) winding its way through his nerves like a parasite, for conditioning and training, though they call it rehabilitation. Another moan, harsh and panting, closer to sex than to pain and there's the knowledge that the two are closer kin than any ideas have a right to be. And in this place, this sterile white box, pain is pleasure is pain. Any sensation is better than unending blank.

Any sensation is better than numb.

He pushes himself up onto his knees, shivering hard as the sweat on his skin is dried quickly, clean ocean smell evaporating into the air. He braces his weight on his hands and stares at them, dead pale -- blue-white like a drop of ink in cream -- and trembling. His veins are darker, delicate cracks and hairline fractures in the solidity of his skin. The wolf oozes out of those cracks when he loses control, fur spreads across his skin like a liquid epidemic, and if it weren't his body, his self that got washed away, he'd probably be fascinated. But it is his body, it is his mind and his wants and his will that falls into the wolf, feeding it, flesh from his flesh, soul from his soul, human cunning and animal honesty winding around each other until they are one entity that lifts its head to the moon and howls out a song of anger and loneliness and lust, primal and unnatural, monstrously, perversely alive.

Part of him wants to sink back into the purity offered by the wolf. The wolf is clean, complicated humanity boiled down to base instinct: fight, flee, feed, and fuck. Brutally simple. He craves that simplicity, wants to pull it around himself like a blanket and hide from the cold, prying eyes and hands. He wants to run from the things that violate his humanity, the things that hold up a mirror and find his reflection wanting, lacking because he's not them, never will be them, doesn't want to be them.

The door hisses open and he looks up, teeth bared and a growl rising up in his chest. Another hiss, sharp stab in his side and the floor rushes up to kiss his cheek in a blaze of swirling color before everything turns black.

*

\--pain in his eyes and gnawing hunger in his gut, lips pulled back and he snaps at the fingers, gags at the foul chemical taste--

\--"Hostile 42...kept under heavy sedation...isolated until tests are complete..."

\--metal bite low on his back and he bites his tongue, swallows a scream and the wash of his own blood like hot copper between his teeth, he won't cry, won't make a sound, won't give them anything else--

\--"...should allow us to control...test...against other HSTs..."

\--wolf rises up in his stomach, burns through his veins, against his eyes, and he pushes it away. Wolf is his, his and they can't have him use him--

\--"Colonel McNamara? The staging area is ready."

*

His fingers scrabble for purchase on the metal-lined floor and one foot lashes out, desperate, he doesn't want to die here, like this, labrat and food and failed experiment. He doesn't want to die without pulling the humans around him down in a glorious rush of noise and blood like wine on his tongue. Not his own. Theirs. He wants to feel their bones snap in his jaws, wants to suck the marrow out, wants to taste the rich bitter of their heart as it slides down his throat.

The vampire screams, and the smell of its frustration almost covers the scent of dead flesh. Strong hands grab him as he tries to crawl away, and then there are teeth on his throat. His body reacts, going limp, going hard, acknowledging dominance for one dazed moment before teeth penetrate his skin, bringing him back to himself.

Sudden ache, tingle in his fingers, and the vampire's arm shreds beneath his claws like paper. He's on the floor again, crouched and growling, waiting for the perfect moment to--

There. He springs forward, hands-claws already reaching for the vampire, skin parting under his fingers, and it's easy, terribly, terribly easy to push up, a little more, and there it is, cold and not beating in his fist and he pulls--

Ash settles on his skin and hair, covers his body like down, and he feels warm for the first time since he was dragged out here to this hole in the ground answer to mythic insanity.

Someone moves in the corner of his eye, scared little rabbit maneuver, and he leaps, the wolf singing hosannahs and hallelujahs in his blood, hunt for the sheer pleasure of hunting, and the wall inside him crumbles, letting the wolf out, letting it totally, completely free. He feels teeth on his throat again, sharp not painful, and he gives it up, gives it all up like he'd only ever given to Willow. There is a rush on his tongue, hot and wonderful and the fear-smell rises up like the tide, high thin wailing like sea gulls and all he can taste is the fear and the blood and the memory of Veruca, sex and hate and want and pack, and Pete who only got anger, but tasted good anyway.

They pull him off, rifle to the stomach, to the head, and he lets the little rabbit go, pulls cloth and flesh and meat with him and he's got a playmate now, rabid little bunny with big sharp pointy teeth and he can hear laughing, and he thinks it's his but he could be wrong. He hasn't heard himself laugh since before Willow turned everything upside down, cute little Eskimo and her barbed harpoon, fur-clad Cupid with weapons of mass destruction.

He's still laughing when they inject him with their drugs, and lock him in their cage, and he's still laughing when the cage across from him opens up and he can see his baby, still bleeding and shrieking----"You know me! I'm not a threat! I'm a person--"

\--person person not a threat. Human. They'll poke him and prod him and take him again and again until there's only anger and pain and maddened confusion and the need to hurt them like they hurt him, and he's not laughing anymore. Now, he's just tired, the wolf is tired, and the cloying sweet smell of blood fills the cell until he can't think of anything but sleep.

His baby, his rabbit, his child has just retreated into the corner and is crying in huge, sobbing gulps of air, wailing obscenities at him and he can't bring himself to care. He bows forward, his forehead resting against the glass and his eyes are burning. He won't cry. Not now. Not ever again. Not even for the monster they've made out of him.

His hands shake where he rests them against the clear wall, and as he slides down onto his knees, his hands leave long bloody streaks like tears on the glass.


End file.
